Shifted Social Media Usage, Among Teens

Back in my day, we just used email and ICQ on a computer. Done and done. A lot has changed since then. In fact, a lot changed in just the past few years. The Pew Research Center released survey results for teen social media usage in 2018. Compared to 2015, Facebook is down a lot, whereas Instagram and Snapchat are up.

Shifts in Teen Social Media Usage

Among 13- to 17-year-olds, 2015 versus 2018

2015

2018

100%

YouTube

I guess the cesspool comment sections qualify as social. They didn’t in 2015.

80%

Instagram

Work on that selfie game.

Snapchat

The stock price would have made me think otherwise.

60%

Facebook

The biggest drop, from 71% to 51%. Maybe the teens are all busy on Facebook-owned Instagram.

40%

Google+

RIP, basically

Twitter

Not much change. Seems about right.

Vine

RIP

20%

Tumblr

Reddit

In the 2015 survey, Reddit was clumped together with all discussion boards like Digg. Not quite comparable, but at the time, 17% of teens said they commented on such sites.

0%

2015

2018

Source: Pew Research Center

Shifts in Teen Social Media Usage

Among 13- to 17-year-olds, 2015 versus 2018

2015

2018

YouTube

80%

Instagram

Snapchat

60%

Facebook

40%

Google+

RIP, basically

Twitter

Vine

RIP

20%

Tumblr

Reddit

0%

2015

2018

On the train the other day I was telling my friend how Snapchat is so odd to use. The interface just doesn’t make sense to me, and I think that makes me old. Then I looked up and a group of teens were all using it talking about snaps, stories, and whosits and whatsits. Kids these days.

I’m looking forward to another three years from now. I think we’ll abandon social media completely. It’ll just be a bunch of smart home devices trying to one-up each other with joke after joke and lighting scenes.